King Edward the IV, it was understood, had the perogative to decide which POWs would live and which would die during the War of the Roses. I am reminded of this by the "Yoo Memos"
The outrageous claims for Executive Power have been revealed to us with the release of the Yoo Memos. The attacks on the Constitution have been uncovered. But, I’m wondering if anyone is as appalled as I am by the basic mindset exposed in these arguments?
In the President's Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations (03-13-2002) memo the "historical context" cited is so horrifying as to be ludicrous.
1- Bush attorneys essentially ignore the purpose of our American Revolution. "gaps [in the Constitution] left to be filled in by the Framers’ shared understanding of the government under which they had lived." We are then referred to the British Constitution. They would have done better to review the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers; both containing limits on the executive.
2- Some of the examples submitted to prove that "it was well established under the British Constitution that the Crown [read Bush here] had absolute authority to dispose as it saw fit" and therefore the President: King Henry V’s ordering the execution of prisoners at Agincourt; Queen Anne’s refusal to prisoner of war exchanges "largely because she was personally insulted". And most insultingly the historical precedent of General Howe’s imprisonment of American soldiers on prison ships.
Bush and company did not want merely a dictatorship; they wanted to establish another monarchy. I shudder when I realize how close we came. We must return to the rule of law, to our Constitution.
Unless we Indict and Prosecute these criminals we have not stepped nearly far enough away from the precipice.